As birth rate falls, Vermont monitors moose

Vermont aims to raise population by limiting hunting-permit allocation

Oct. 27, 2013

Pete Emerson of the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife counts tick larvae on a moose at Island Pond. Following a protocol used in Maine and New Hampshire, state officials are counting ticks on moose for the first time in Vermont. / PHOTOS BY SALLY POLLAK/FREE PRESS

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Free Press Staff Writer

Jim Lewis (left) of St. Albans and his son Ryan Lewis of East Fairfield together shot a cow moose Oct. 19 at a wildlife refuge in Island Pond. The moose went down with two shots to the lung. The hunters celebrated with Bud Lite, Captain Morgan with orange soda, and lasagna. / SALLY POLLAK/FREE PRESS

A sign at a moose check station in Island Pond tallies the count of animals brought in to be weighed. The Essex County location is the busiest in the state. With one day left in this year's hunt, 53 moose had been documented at Island Pond. / SALLY POLLAK/FREE PRESS

A moose and its calf wade through a pond in East Montpelier. / AP FILE

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ISLAND POND — The dead cow moose lay splayed in a trailer hitched to a pickup truck in the parking lot of the town garage in Island Pond. Its hooves fell off the rig; its abdomen showed the wide slice where hunters had gutted it.

The men who shot the moose one recent Saturday at dusk had left the animal Sunday morning for a time, so they could go back to the woods. They walked about 20 minutes into the Silvio Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge, the federal land where the animal was shot, to retrieve its innards.

The errand for body parts, which were left behind before a horse dragged out the moose, was run on behalf of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. Officials in Island Pond wanted the animal’s ovaries and asked the hunters if they’d return to the woods to get them.

“They were pretty convincing, and we wanted to do it,” said Jim Lewis, 61, a carpenter from St. Albans who, with his son, Ryan Lewis, shot the animal. “It’ll help people later to know the herd better.”

Moose ovaries are of particular value in Essex County, which several years ago had the lowest moose birth rate ever recorded anywhere, said Cedric Alexander, a Fish and Wildlife biologist and the state’s moose project leader.

By examining ovaries, biologists can determine an animal’s birth rate, with an interest in the collective rate of the herd at particular locations in the state. The information helps wildlife officials learn if the moose herd is in balance with its habitat. It indicates if a range is perhaps over-browsed by the animals or if other factors, such as tick infestation, are affecting birth rate, Alexander said.

Officials also use birth rate to help calculate how many hunting permits to issue. It is one of several factors they consider in their overall understanding and assessment of moose health, as the animals’ population is declining in other states, Alexander said.

“I’m not worried to that extent — to say they’re in trouble,” Alexander said. “We’re vigilant. We’re watching things. We’re on the lookout.”

Vermont’s moose population is about 2,500; the long-range management plan calls to raise the population to 3,000 to 5,000 animals, Alexander said. One method to achieve slow growth of the moose population is to limit the number of hunting permits issued.

This year, for the six-day rifle season that ended Thursday, Vermont issued 362 permits. The hunters are chosen by lottery: 12,500 people entered to win a chance at moose hunting, for a success rate of 2.9 percent. Two hunters can hunt on a permit; they can be accompanied by a guide, who cannot shoot at the animal.

The moose hunt was re-instituted in Vermont in 1993, almost a century after the Legislature afforded the animal protection, making it illegal to shoot them. “It was really a celebratory time when we were able to once again start to moose hunt,” Alexander said.

Vermont has been adjusting the number of permits it issues since 1993, in an effort to achieve balance in population and distribution. In 1993, the state issued 30 permits, all in Island Pond. The number of permits increased to more than 1,000 per year from 2005 to 2009.

“We were trying to get ahead of the tremendous over-population we had in the Northeast Kingdom,” Alexander said.

(This time frame coincides with the Essex County birth rate dropping to a record-low 0.78 births per mature female, evidence that the population has exceeded the carrying capacity of its habitat, Alexander said. A healthy range is 1.4 to 1.7 births per mature cow moose.)

'Gets the sporting people out'

Last Sunday in Island Pond, at the busiest check station in the state, scores of people gathered to wait for moose carcasses to come in from the woods, get weighed and be checked.

Fathers propped kids on their shoulders to give them a better view of the weigh-in. People ate moose chili. They discussed how many moose had come in that day and talked about the number of years they’ve tried (most without luck) to win a moose-hunting permit. They read the big green sign that charts the number of moose kills, and the small orange one from a man looking to buy moose skins.

“I’m just here to see how the moose hunt is going,” said Tom Doyon. He grew up in Island Pond and drove over from Whitefield, N.H., where he lives now, as a kind of tradition.

“It’s a much larger deal here than over there,” Doyon said. “It gets all the sporting people out, I guess.”

In the town garage, Elizabeth Sykes, 74, of Island Pond served chicken and biscuits and moose chili to the spectators. “I think it’s boring as hell,” she said. “And I shouldn’t, ’cause my kids all hunt, and my grandkids hunt.”

She worked with Neta Aldrich, 71, who bemoaned the fact that she didn’t have a permit. “I shot a bear back of my house the other day,” she said. “I donated it to the wild game supper and ate it last night.”

Many of the people who came to the check station were hunters whose names didn’t come up in the lottery.

“We’ve harvested a couple of moose out of our camp,” said Dan Drury of Middlesex, who has a camp at Norton Pond. “It’s meat for the winter. It gives us the chance to eat local, non-processed, lean and healthy meat.”

He was standing by the trailer where the Jim and Ryan Lewis’ moose lay, showing a bare spot on its side from getting dragged out of the woods by a fast-moving horse.

The Lewises and their guide, Steve Coe, used GPS to return to the spot where they had left the moose’s innards. Arriving back at the check station, they handed a black plastic bag that contained the innards to Pete Emerson, a specialist with Fish and Wildlife.

Emerson opened the bag on the back of truck, fished out the ovaries and sliced them off with a long-bladed knife. He and other state officials earlier had performed other checks on the moose, including counting tick larvae, extracting a tooth to determine the age of the animal, and taking blood samples (this was done by the Health Department) to check for antibodies to Eastern equine encephalitis and West Nile virus.

“As these diseases are recognized to be human problems, we’re trying to find out where they are and where they’re coming from,” said Emerson, noting they are no risk to moose. “Coupled with that, we’ve seen a number of parasites and diseases that are affecting the moose numbers, as well.”

Winter ticks and brain worms

The parasites of greatest concern to state biologists are winter ticks and brain worms, said Cedric Alexander, the Fish and Wildlife biologist. These are tolerated by deer (85 percent of whom carry the brain worm), yet can be lethal to moose. As the deer range has expanded north, and the two types of mammals share habitat, moose have become the “abnormal hosts” of winter ticks and brain worms.

Nine percent of the moose found dead in Vermont from non-hunting deaths show signs of infestation with brain worms, Alexander said. The worms can damage the moose’s central nervous system, slowly paralyzing the animal one side. Moose walking in circles is a clear indication of brain-worm infestation, Alexander said.

As for ticks, deer are able to groom themselves to clear ticks from their bodies. They have the agility and physical size to reach around and lick the ticks off their bodies. Moose are unable to do so, Alexander said. Often, they rub themselves on trees to try to rid themselves of ticks, leaving exposed patches of skin. A greater threat is anemia from blood loss caused by thousands of ticks feeding on moose, Alexander said.

“The amount of blood that 30,000 ticks can consume is several times the amount of blood in the animal,” he said. The energy required to try to replenish the blood supply, especially for moose calves, can be beyond the animal’s capacity in winter, when larvae hatch, Alexander added.

This is the first year Vermont officials counted tick larvae at check stations. Following a protocol used in New Hampshire and Maine, the Vermonters focused on four parts of the body, each area 10 centimeters by 10 centimeters.

Last weekend in Island Pond, Emerson straddled a moose that was shot in Bloomfield to look closely for ticks. Making a rough estimate, he said he’d counted 20 to 100 tick larvae per moose.

By monitoring the prevalence of tick larvae that attach to moose in October, the biologists will get an indication of how severe the tick infestation might be in the winter, when the larvae molt into adult ticks and start heavy feeding on moose.

“Maine and New Hampshire have years of data that I can look at and compare our numbers with,” Alexander said. “They also have some data on springtime hair loss. We can see if there’s a correlation with the number of larvae found this time of year and the hair loss in the spring.”

Rebounding birth rate

From its nadir four or five years ago, the birth rate in Essex County (0.78) has rebounded to 1.0 births per mature cow. This is below the state average of 1.13 — and both are below the optimum healthy rate (1.4 to 1.7).

In the mid 2000s (2005-08), Essex County had five moose per square mile. The state issued more than 1,000 hunting licenses in those years, with a goal of reducing the herd size in that county to 1.75 animals per square mile, Alexander said.

“We feel we’re at our population target in the northern part of Essex County,” he said.

In other locations, the population is below what the state wants to achieve. This includes Barton in Orleans County, where the density is half a moose per square mile; the state would like that to double, Alexander said.

“The more moose harvested, the more meat on supper tables, the more happy people,” Alexander said. “With a success rate of over 50 percent, the majority go home happy.”

The Lewises went home happy last weekend, after a day-long hunt Saturday and the check-in Sunday morning. With their friend and guide, Steve Coe of Morrisville, they saw two animals Saturday morning at the wildlife refuge but couldn’t get a shot off.

The group walked almost seven miles, tracking moose. Around dusk they spotted an animal; father and son took aim from 60 yards away. Each man struck the moose in her lungs.

“I’m pretty thrilled,” Jim Lewis said a week ago, standing by the moose. “It’ll last more than the winter.”

Coe, who was not allowed to shoot, said he’s been giving Vermont $10 a year since 1993 in hopes of winning a moose-hunting permit.

“They’re not as dumb as people say they are,” Coe said of moose. “Hunting isn’t about shooting; it’s about finding them. Bullet placement is everything.”

To mark a successful hunt and plenty of meat for the winter, Coe and Ryan Lewis shook hands over the head of the moose before driving home.

“I was born 100 years too late,” Coe, 56, said. “I should’ve been a mountain man.”